56 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVIII. No. 967 



Pfeiffer, Geh. Med.-Eat. in Weimar, with 



250 Original-Abbildungen. Jena, Verlag 



von Gustav Fischer. 1912. 



Dr. Pfeiffer has produced an important 

 work on the stone art in which he has not only- 

 detailed his own extensive researches on the 

 subject, but has brought together the results 

 found in the scattered and often inaccessible 

 publications which have appeared from time 

 to time. It is encouraging to workers that his 

 enthusiasm has not been dampened by the 

 diiEculty of encompassing so vast a subject, 

 the most part of whose materials are buried 

 (archeological) and the rest only fragmen- 

 tarily studied (ethnological culture history). 

 If we regret that the historians of the past 

 have not recorded for us the methods of an- 

 cient arts, so do we also mourn that there were 

 not more of the thorough workers like Holmes, 

 Mason, McGuire, Gushing, Eoth and others, 

 to undertake the study of present man before 

 he lost his inherited art. 



Dr. Pfeiffer remarks in his preface that or- 

 ganized labor goes farther back than has been 

 supposed and that in the immensely long 

 period before metals, man had manufactured 

 implements and discovered processes for a 

 definite purpose and in so doing developed in- 

 dustries and the tools necessary to carry them 

 on. The work concerns the stone age up to 

 the time of the beginning of the technical age 

 when bronze, hard bronze and iron took the 

 place of stone, the latter age small compared 

 with the million years that flint dominated. 

 He believes that the tools that have survived 

 to us show a progressive modification as a re- 

 sult of their transmittal from earlier to later 

 social units, the changes marking the phases 

 of culture which in European archeology are 

 practically established. The most important 

 material covered by the monograph is natur- 

 ally flint, but Dr. Pfeiffer does not lose sight 

 of the industries connected with wood, skin 

 and other softer materials. 



The subject is so fascinating that excur- 

 sions into it are almost irresistible and with 

 some slight knowledge of the complexity of 

 the study and the liability to error we must 



honor the efforts of those who are the pio- 

 neers. The problems are not simple, it is not 

 enough to know how the American Indian 

 made an arrowhead — there are 20 ways, or 

 to set it on its shaft — there are many ways. 

 A study of the mute point in a museum is 

 good, but a study of the mind of primitive 

 man correlated with its environment is neces- 

 sary before we can loose the scientific imagi- 

 nation on its quest. We must manipulate the 

 substances ourselves; we must unravel and 

 weave again until the possibilities are ex- 

 hausted so far as our limits are concerned, 

 going again and again to the man in the 

 hinterland of civilization and hoping, also, 

 that some survival can be wrested from bog 

 or cave to give us light. 



The chapters are seven, as follows: (1) The 

 History of Technic in the Stone Age, Treating 

 of the Time Element; (2) The Physical Basis 

 of Stone Technic; (3) The Products; (4) The 

 Stone Age Bone Work; (5) The Stone Age 

 Wood Work; (6) Animal Industry; (Y) The 

 Extinction of the Stone Art. 



The subheadings of subjects treated under 

 the chapters number 59 and form -an interest- 

 ing synopsis. Walter Hough 



Psychology and Industrial Efficiency. By 

 Hugo Munsterberg. Boston and New 

 York, Houghton Mifflin Company. 1913. 

 Pp. 321. $1.50 net. 



There are three varieties of books on ap- 

 plied psychology. To the first variety belongs 

 the intensive monograph in which is reported 

 some attempt to utilize the methods of experi- 

 mental psychology in the detailed investiga- 

 tion of some limited problem of general and 

 practical importance. This variety is repre- 

 sented by Thorndike's studies in the quantita- 

 tive measurement of school progress. A sec- 

 ond variety attempts directly to apply the gen- 

 eralizations of psychology to some particular 

 field of daily life, and is represented by Scott's 

 books on psychology and business. Books 

 of the third variety are designed primarily 

 to stimulate general interest in the possible 

 serviceableness of the science and to suggest 

 various directions which this service may 



